Bio

Amy Lam is a writer, psychologist, community advocate, mother and lover of nature. Through her work, she offers one woman’s voice in how to heal from soul wounds. Deeply grounded in shamanic practice, her poems give reverence to the ancestors, the natural world, the supernatural, the delightful child, and the divinely human. Her work calls sisters and brothers across the globe to join her out of the darkness and into the light to which we all belong.

Her work has been published in AsianWeek, Feministing.com, VONA/Voices Writers Against Racial Injustice, the Seed, Borderland Practice Anthology, and an upcoming first-grade textbook. Her mixed-media work was exhibited with Asian American Women Artists Association’s 2011 Hungry Ghost exhibit. Amy has been a keynote speaker and performer in universities, schools, conferences and workshops including the Asian American Psychological Association, Teach for America, the Northern California Mental Health and Spirituality Conference, and at the Berkeley Arts Museum.

As a psychologist and community advocate, Amy is dedicated to giving voice to underserved communities. In 2003, she received a Ph.D. in social/cultural psychology, focused on the sexual health of Asian Americans. As past research director of the California Young Women’s Collaborative, Amy inspired a new generation of young APA women to recognize their power through research and advocacy. Over the past 10 years, Amy has continued her work in community health to support and empower young people, LGBT communities, and recent immigrants and refugees. She helped to build Street Level Health Project, an Oakland-based grassroots organization that improves the health and wellbeing of underserved urban immigrant communities in the Bay Area. She currently works at Community Health for Asian Americans to create space and opportunities for community healing and wellness.

In 2011, Amy was recognized as one of 15 top Asian American women progressive leaders across the country for her work in empowering Asian American girls and women by the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, Hyphen magazine, and Angry Asian Man. Her pioneering work on APA women and sexual health confronts cultural norms and taboos while challenging the binding silence of the status quo on APA women and girls.